DIY for Homeowners

When the grands/nephews ask Mother Daughter Projects to make them something, well, this grandma and aunt can't say no!

Tyler, the older of the two, asked us to make a submarine for his stuffed animal friend and of course, Andrew, wanted one too. The submarine had to be "like Mickey's" from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He directed us to the cartoon episode where we could find a picture of it so we could do our "research!"

We came up with a similar enough looking submarine, that floated, and pleased both of the boys. Take a look at how we made the subs from mostly recycled materials.

Mickey charm (this is a charm that goes on a magic band and the other is the back to a disney pin)

(We had all these materials already so this project was $0)

First we made a template of the plastic lid to help us when designing the sub fin. We folded the template in half and cut out our design so that both halves would be the same.

We laid out our template and traced two fins. Steph cut those out as Vicki prepared the first container for paint. She used painters tape to mark off where the stripe will be.

Steph cut the top off the soda bottle to make the cone decoration for the top of the sub and painted it yellow. Vicki painted the inside of the container instead of the outside because the paint we use was not waterproof.

We painted the dowl that will connect the cone to the roof and Vicki traced out the fins that will attach to the top of the sub. She hand drew all of this based on the original Mickey sub.

Tip: we are painting on a puppy pad. These are great because they are backed by plastic and paint won't bleed through. This is a great way to work inside and keep your tabletop clean.

Vicki cut out the fins and painted them. She also painted the main bottom fins red.

Vicki finished painting the inside of both containers and removed the painter's tape.

We cut slices from a pool noodle to make the wheels and cut the dowl down to size.

We used hot glue to attach the bottom fin but for a more permanent bond we would use a different glue like e6000.

We attached a Mickey charm to the sub front.

We glued the pool noodle wheels in place.

Lastly it was time to glue the top embellishments in place. We used Sugru which is a moldable, water proof glue. Sugru comes in all different colors so we thought the red would be great for this! Sugru takes 24 hours to cure so we propped up our elements while they dried.

24 hours later, the submarines are done and ready to be tried out by Tyler and Andrew!

The boys loved them but a few days later they took them out in a rain storm...the subs didn't make it out in one piece :( Oh well, they were cute and fun but we learned they are not heavy duty enough for rough water play.

Please note: We are not sponsored by any of the companies/products that we used. These products were picked and bought by us.

FYI: We are not professionals, and we don’t claim to be. This is what we found worked for our project. Yours may need a little different approach. Safety first!

FYI: Affiliate links are being used on this page. Purchasing via these links help support MDP!